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Name Michael Blackler
Interview Date 8th June 2005
Subjects covered Blackout, Entertainment (Pubs, Cinemas),
Location Oxford, Otmoor Country, Chesterton, Wolvercote, Wotton, Botley,
People Included

This is an edited extract of a recorded interview conducted by Museum of Oxford with Mr Michael Blackler. It has been submitted to the People’s War website with her permission. A full version of the interview transcript and audio recording will be available at the Centre for Oxfordshire Studies.

Blackout
Oh, the blackout was… when it first started dear it was dreadful cos we were opposite the warden, the Air Raid Warden, and he was very keen on, you know ‘showing a light, that needs to come out’ ‘this won’t do’. I remember we had to have the light, a big shade brought the light just to the middle of the room, you know. At first. And then course it affects every room you’re going to use. If affects the landing the staircase the hall the kitchen, everywhere in the house, so we had to get big um…cos we got fairly, imagine windows like that to have to have er… we had um… thick paper against sort of um.. a wooden frame and they used to have to put up every night.
It was alright when it was summer came, you didn’t have to do so much!

Oxfordshire was bombed before London in June 1940… The Otmoor country um… was the first… when they um… we heard the warning… no no nothing happened at all in Oxford, nothing at all, no noise or anything, and there, I went to the bank, it was on the Cowley Road, you know it… Union Street on the Cowley Road, it’s not there now, not Barclays bank there now, and a girl she came from Little Chesterton, near Bicester ‘Oh’ she said, ‘those damn Germans have kept us awake all night with their bombs going off’. We couldn’t believe it. It was so close, you know. And they killed… one person was killed, and a chicken was killed outside Islip. And er… that was the that was the story that Oxfordshire was bombed before London was.

Entertainment
… wasn’t very good news for the drinkers. The pubs were closed for four days of the week cos they couldn’t get the supplies. That wouldn’t suit them would it. It would open er.. they’d get the supplies on the Thursday, it would open Friday, Saturday, they might have some left for Sunday but not always, might have to…about four days a week. Cos I remem… , I remember …on a hot June night in 1942,I’d been digging for victory… I never found it!…I was just digging the garden, you know, and I wanted to go out and have a pint. So I got my bike out and cycled up the Woodstock road, Red Lion, which is now the Lemon Tree; closed. Woodstock Arms: closed. Went down to Wolvercote; all the pubs closed. Trout; closed. White Hart Wotton; closed. And the only pub open was the George at Botley and can you imagine what the number of people outside… and they ran out of glasses! That was that, that… wartime.

Well you see when the, when the war first started um… 1939 when it first started, they closed the cinemas, they closed the theatres, for a whole fortnight but they thought no, it’s going to be morale… its going to be bad for morale. People wanted to boosting you know. Wanted somewhere to go, something to think about so they used to keep them open all during the war, theatres. There was just that time when it was, you know, the initial stage.

V.E. Day
When you think of it the relief, the relief it gave after all those nights they had of getting bombs and air raids and all that and blackout and all that, and suddenly be relieved that all that’s going to change and that’s peace… peace reign-eth!

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